I am burdened about the destiny of 100,000 to 200,000 Jews in the Churches
of North America. Do they continue to maintain any serious Jewish
identity and transmission of that identity to their children? Sometimes those
in the Messianic Jewish congregations have written off these Jews in
churches. However, we need to ask if God has a special purpose for them.

There are three clear contexts in which Jewish followers of Yeshua live their
lives. There is first the context of congregations where the majority of
members are Jewish and where Jewish life is fostered in some significant way,
either Israeli life, Jewish tradition or other points of cultural
identification. In Israel, this is the norm. The community of believers is
growing steadily in our homeland. Second, is the context of Messianic
congregations where the majority of members are not Jewish, but where a
Jewish minority continues to identify with Jewish life. The Gentile majority
joins them in this life to varying extents. This is by far the largest number
of congregations in the Messianic Movement in the Diaspora and the majority
of Messianic Jews seeking to live a Jewish life are in these congregations.
Third, are Jews in churches who may connect to some aspects of Jewish life
but not necessarily connect to Jewish life in any significant way. What is
the will of God for Jews in this category?

Last month saw a further drop in the number of people switching from
paper to email: only 13 people have made the switch since the December
newsletter! To those who have switched this month - a big Thank You!
To our other readers, may we ask you to consider switching over ? We
are still working towards our aim to get at least half the mailing onto
electronic media but as you can see, we still have quite a long way to
go, so please consider whether you could switch to email format for your
newsletter and help us save the stamp! Do remember though, we want to
be able to keep in touch with you in the way that suits you best. You
can switch to email-only, or ask to be switched to the paper
distribution by clicking on the link just below.